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Nobody knows how the whole system works

surfingcomplexity.blog

211–220 of 226 posts

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#211
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Additionally, a company can own and update a business language of their own design at their own pace and need. Then they can use AI to translate from their controlled business language to the DSL needed (translation being an area it actually does well). In this way the LLM would only ever be going from General -> specific, which should keep it on the rails, and the business can keep its business logic stored…

> I agree. Additionally, a company can own and update a business language of their own design at their own pace and need. Yes, although I was more thinking of this being in most cases a SaaS offering because the implementation of the DSL needs solid non-LLM engineering. Larger companies will be able to afford an internal platform team, but most won't. > Now that said, there is still the actual engineering problem of…

I see the angle you're coming from now, more mass market and expanding best practices from bigger companies out to medium and small businesses looking for plug and play solutions.

I was thinking more about what I believe you describe as the "hard" engineers, and would say the power AI provides for mapping and translating will greatly benefit those teams as well with the right set-up. People are pushing for the "code for me" angle, but i think there will be a lot of opportunity to have LLMs take on a middle ground of syntax management while the engineers manage the system effects. for example, the engineer may be deciding whether to use a linked list or binary tree and the LLM is implementing it with the available code stack approved by the company.

A company that can successfully implement such an LLM opens up their talent pool from people who know their stack (or want to learn it) to people who know any stack

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#212
post #204

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

Vaguely reminds me of a phenomenon in farming an acquaintance recently told me. Apparently automation is now so great (if you can afford it), that operators only need to sit in their tractors and let the machine do the rest. You're effectively a weight for the seat contact switch.

That works until something goes wrong.

Same as "self-driving cars", the automated farm machinery can't cope with any sort of change in its environment.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I overdrafted the account to the max ($500) and left them the bill I think theft is a poor answer - although most society accepts your rationalisation when dealing with government or big business. Even worse is that you can't know what it may cost you in the future. My friend couldn't open a business account the other day. After many phone calls he was lucky enough to find someone that told him it was because he le…

> I think theft is a poor answer Theft? HA! Nope, they attempted to rob me , on multiple levels. Categorically refused. > Even worse is that you can't know what it may cost you in the future. My friend couldn't open a business account the other day. After many phone calls he was lucky enough to find someone that told him it was because he left a bank account $67 overdrawn when he was younger. Oh no! How will I ever c…

Excellent read please tell me more about your novel approaches to deal with daily life by breaking the law with theft and property damage.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think theft is a poor answer Theft? HA! Nope, they attempted to rob me , on multiple levels. Categorically refused. > Even worse is that you can't know what it may cost you in the future. My friend couldn't open a business account the other day. After many phone calls he was lucky enough to find someone that told him it was because he left a bank account $67 overdrawn when he was younger. Oh no! How will I ever c…

Excellent read please tell me more about your novel approaches to deal with daily life by breaking the law with theft and property damage.

Sorry, you're thoroughly confused. It is not theft to steal from a thief. It's called "justice."

I realize this is a radical concept for your society, which at this moment is thoroughly unjust. Familiarize yourself with this concept now, as it will come up later on the test.

No wonder you keep getting robbed and fucked over all the time. You think it's somehow morally wrong to strike back! It's like you were born and bred to be a victim.

This also explains why so many others get victimized while you stand by and watch idly. Because you think there's nothing wrong with your fellow man getting fucked over!

I could explain more, but it would be useless, as your confusion is at this time far too thick and heavy to be dispelled by just one guy like me. What you're gonna need is somebody like me in your local area to help educate you.

My recommendation is to just double park your big ass honkin truck or Maserati somewhere, then just watch and see what happens. Eventually, you will reach enlightenment.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#215
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree. Additionally, a company can own and update a business language of their own design at their own pace and need. Yes, although I was more thinking of this being in most cases a SaaS offering because the implementation of the DSL needs solid non-LLM engineering. Larger companies will be able to afford an internal platform team, but most won't. > Now that said, there is still the actual engineering problem of…

I see the angle you're coming from now, more mass market and expanding best practices from bigger companies out to medium and small businesses looking for plug and play solutions. I was thinking more about what I believe you describe as the "hard" engineers, and would say the power AI provides for mapping and translating will greatly benefit those teams as well with the right set-up. People are pushing for the "code…

> for example, the engineer may be deciding whether to use a linked list or binary tree and the LLM is implementing it with the available code stack approved by the company

At this point it's a slightly more sophisticated version of the IDE's "refactor tool". If, in addition to replacing "HashMap" with "LinkedList" in a bunch of places, it might also fix tests, then it's indeed useful but won't be worth paying much more for it.

> A company that can successfully implement such an LLM opens up their talent pool from people who know their stack (or want to learn it) to people who know any stack

Think about it: if the business usefulness of a tool is mostly in reducing onboarding time by even a 75%, it's not really that valuable.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#216
post #94

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

I am still missing something like Claude code that's less "hands-off" and optimizes for small edits instead of full feature development Like you're sitting in your ide, select a few rows, press (for example) caps lock to activate speech and then just say a short line what it should adjust or similar - which is then staged for the next adjustments to be done with the same UX Like saying "okay, I need a new usecase her…

the big problem with tools like that is that the agent can read all the existing code and docs when asked, but it cant read your mind.

its always going to do better if you give it a stronger description of the problem, and give it some more freedom on the solution.

if youre sitting more in the solution side, youre going to be dictating those exact functions because theres not enough context for it to just know what the right function you need is

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent read please tell me more about your novel approaches to deal with daily life by breaking the law with theft and property damage.

Sorry, you're thoroughly confused. It is not theft to steal from a thief. It's called "justice." I realize this is a radical concept for your society, which at this moment is thoroughly unjust. Familiarize yourself with this concept now, as it will come up later on the test. No wonder you keep getting robbed and fucked over all the time. You think it's somehow morally wrong to strike back! It's like you were born and…

Dont give up on me! I too am eager to learn! Change the error of my ways please! I demand more of your thoughts regarding how to contend with daily life.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent read please tell me more about your novel approaches to deal with daily life by breaking the law with theft and property damage.

Sorry, you're thoroughly confused. It is not theft to steal from a thief. It's called "justice." I realize this is a radical concept for your society, which at this moment is thoroughly unjust. Familiarize yourself with this concept now, as it will come up later on the test. No wonder you keep getting robbed and fucked over all the time. You think it's somehow morally wrong to strike back! It's like you were born and…

Arbitrarily redefining words so that you can make an otherwise fallacious argument is called equivocation. Ends do not always justify means.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#220
You don't need to understand how the whole system works.

What you need to understand is the API's in-between the sub-systems.

Another way to put it is that the architecture is the API's.

You can in principle throw away and re-implement the sub-system for a specific API without understanding the rest of the system.

I am saying in principle because in practice API's are typically under-specified leaving out important side effects.

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